Having to skirt round yet another anti-lockdown protest during our most recent walk, and waking to the news that one in thirty Londoners has the virus and London NHS hospitals are two weeks from being overwhelmed, we have decided to keep off the streets until we are vaccinated. That means retreating to our terrace for exercise as we did in March last year.
I must admit, the prospect filled me with dread – not being able to stretch one’s legs properly and having no wildlife to enjoy – that is until I looked at our lemon tree for the first time since the Summer.
“The writer” is more cheerful pounding up and down our small, empty space than he has been lately walking gingerly in the park and so much of our time at the moment is spent glued to CNN and the goings on in the U.S., exercise anywhere is the last thing on our minds, as we sit, aghast, in front of the TV.
All I need now is a recipe for what to do with unripe lemons, as there are masses on the tree that I assume won’t get enough light to ripen. If anyone has a (polite) suggestion, please add it to the comment box.
Sad, sad. Our period of near-ish normality is over. Covid infections in Central London are rising rapidly and I suspect we’ll be in full Lockdown again before long.
Despite the new rules about mask-wearing, those serving in shops and restaurants round here, if they weren’t wearing masks before, are still not, risking the £200 fine. The NHS Covid app. downloaded yesterday, tells me we are at “Medium” risk level in Soho and pulses away, assuring me it is “active and scanning”. So far, it seems to have encountered nothing untoward.
On our walk to St. Jame’s park, we become aware of massed police vans, full and obviously waiting for something to happen.
On our way back, a rally is coalescing in Trafalgar Square.
Although it’s billed as Anti-Lockdown, it’s a rag-bag of protestors, some of whom will surely be surprised to find themselves hugger-mugger with those whose views are anathema to them. What does the advocate of Bitcoin share with the man telling us Jesus will save us, for example? Calls for the jailing of Bill Gates and Matt Hancock intermingle with ernest, muttered conversation about world conspiracy . The police, most of whom have not been wearing masks over the past weeks as they patrol the Soho streets are now wearing them as a badge of affiliation with the law and, as they banter good-naturedly with protestors, they are seemingly unfazed by those nearby carrying banners protesting against “Gestapo Policing.”
False statistics -and no doubt some real ones- vie with crazy predictions. It’s a Covid carnival, ignorance is King and nuance is the first casualty.
Resting against the wall before entering the fray, one woman carries her clear and uncompromising message on a banner obviously too heavy to carry for long. Not for her sophisticated slogans. or the subtleties of statistics………
So far, the crowd is small and calm. We will have to wait to watch tonight’s news to discover whether it stays that way.
As we leave the square, I glance at my NHS Covid app, expecting it to be bleeping ( or whatever it does) to tell me I have been close to any number of infected people – but it is still quietly pulsing its pastoral shade of green – and then I remember, none of these protesters will have succumbed to the tyranny of downloading it.
Locked down in London 